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<title>The Act of Sauntering Vaguely Downwards by Ghostlywheeze</title>
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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345647">The Act of Sauntering Vaguely Downwards</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostlywheeze/pseuds/Ghostlywheeze'>Ghostlywheeze</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angels are assholes, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Anxious Aziraphale (Good Omens), Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale's Bookshop (Good Omens), Bottom Aziraphale (Good Omens), Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Crowley is Bad at Lying (Good Omens), Crowley is Not Okay (Good Omens), Crowley is a Mess (Good Omens), Crowley-centric (Good Omens), Demons Are Assholes, Fallen Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Fluff and Angst, He's the only good one, Hurt Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Kinda, M/M, Pain, Protective Aziraphale (Good Omens), Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), Soft Aziraphale (Good Omens), They are both bottoms, Torture, Worried Aziraphale (Good Omens), but not aziraphale</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 04:02:08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>823</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26345647</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghostlywheeze/pseuds/Ghostlywheeze</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Crowley was fine. Sure, more often than not Crowley woke up in a cold sweat. And yeah, he went through hell and back, but he's fine now. He has to be, for his angels sake. Well, and for the sake of the world.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Aziraphale &amp; Crowley (Good Omens), Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Act of Sauntering Vaguely Downwards</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It hurt when he fell. Sure, he may have described the pain to Aziraphale as nothing more than “sauntering vaguely downwards”, but that was because he didn’t want to worry his angel. Crowley remembers nights where he would hop out of bed, his body burning in remembrance of the agony that had taken over that dreadful day.</p><p>Being damned to hell was one of the most painful things Crowley had ever faced. His entire body stung and twisted and morphed as pain ran through him, clouding his head as he fell through the air. He felt his wings being ripped from his back, one painful feather at a time. By the time that his pearly white feathers were gone, they stabbed holy knives into his back, digging into the flesh and pulling. Crowley would shiver as he remembered the deafening pop that rang throughout the sky. It was like a cork was being pulled off of a wine bottle. Yet, it was his wings, his beautiful, mesmerizing wings. </p><p>In those hellish nights where the memories would plague Crowley as he attempted to shut his brain off, said demon would remember the feeling of demons stitching black wings into Crowley’s back. He would remember the tendons being clipped into place. The feeling of the needle running through his already bleeding flesh. He would remember the sound of the wind rushing past his ears, his screams of pain deafened by the sound of falling. </p><p>Those nights, Crowley would hold himself tight as he thought about his eyes. His beautiful, baby blue eyes, being torn from their sockets. He would remember the way the demons grabbed onto his head, their sharp nails digging into his eyes as they shredded the orbs apart. Then, the demons would simply tilt his head forward. His eyes fell out of the sockets, and down towards the cold ground that was slowly getting closer and closer to Crowley. The demons made quick work of attaching Crowley’s new eyes. Serpents eyes. They attached the tendons and sewed the grotesque orbs into Crowley’s sockets. </p><p>Just as Crowley and the other demons were about to drop onto the cold floors of hell, the demons disappeared, leaving Crowley to hit the ground far too fast. </p><p>Those nights, Crowley remembered the feeling of his new wings slamming into the ground, ripping a few of the stitches out. Crowley remembered the feeling of all of the air leaving his lungs, tears rushing down his cheeks mixed with blood from his new eyes. </p><p>That night, Crowley cried himself to sleep, blood pooling around him in his new cluttered room. The next morning, the demon would wake up to find Beelzebub standing over his broken body, chanting something truly awful as his body withered where it laid on the floor.</p><p>It took months for Crowley to heal. Months to get used to his new appendages. It wasn’t until a full year later that he realized what Beelzebub had done to him that morning. The demon had given Crowley his powers. Beelzebub had made Crowley the serpent to match his new eyes. </p><p>Of course, Crowley never wanted to tell Aziraphale any of this. The angel had just started to understand how messed up Heaven truly was. He didn’t need anything else to make him question his beliefs. </p><p>So, Crowley never told him any of it. No matter how many times his angel asked him about what being damned to hell was like, Crowley would never answer him. The demon knew how Aziraphale would react. He knew that the second he told his angel about what had happened to him, Aziraphale would look at him differently. Each time Crowley woke up from a practically bad dream, he would still see the look of utter shock and horror on Aziraphale's face as dream Crowley explained in horrifying details about his time falling. </p><p>Crowley didn’t need to tell Aziraphale, because in his nightmares, he did. In his nightmares, Crowley told his best friend everything that had happened to him, not caring that his angel was turning a concerning shade of green. In his nightmares, he explained to Aziraphale that it felt like he was burning alive, and that he would still sometimes smell the charred skin that admitted from his body as the flames of hell licked at him. </p><p>When Crowley would wake up from those dreams, he would find himself in a panicked sweat, his heart pounding away in his chest. After those dreams, Crowley would vow to himself that he would never be the cause of seeing that look on his angels face. </p><p>Crowley didn’t need to tell Aziraphale. He really didn’t. Because he was fine. Everything was okay, and he wasn’t there anymore. Plus, they were both so close to stopping the end of the world, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to distract his angel from the import issue at hand. Saving the world as they knew it.</p>
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